Dear Linguists
A few weeks ago I posted on the List asking for any sources (especially
post 1990) on the stressed/syllable-timing issue. I promised to post a
summary of the responses I received. I did not get a lot of reaction,
but the posts that I did receive were very helpful.
Before I provide a list of the sources I were informed about, two
general comments: (i) Most of the linguists who responded mentioned that
the division of languages into the two rhythmic categories is not
accepted widely anymore. (ii) One of the reasons why I did not find a
lot of post 1990 sources on my own initial search, was that I used
"stress", "syllable" and "timing" as search terms. Since this
distinction is not used widely any more, these search terms do not yield
a lot of sources. Using "rhythm" as search term yielded many more and
more recent sources.
Here is a list of the more recent sources I was provided with by those
who responded (the bibliographies of these articles and books are of
course also valuable in providing other recent sources):
Auer, P. 1991. Is rhythm-based typology possible? A study on the
role of prosody in phonological typology. Universitaet Konstanz,
KontRI Working Papers 21.
Beckman, M.E. 1992. Evidence for speech rhythms across languages.
(In Tokhura, Y., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E. & Sagisaka, Y., eds. Speech
perception, production and linguistic structure. Tokyo: Ohmsa. p.
457-463.)
Couper-Kuhlen, E. 1993. English speech rhythm. John Benjamins.
Cumins, F. & Port, R.F. 1998. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing
in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26(2):145-171.
Fant, G., Kruckenberg, A. & Nord, L. 1991. Durational correlates of
stress in Swedish, French and English. Journal of Phonetics,
19:351-365.
Fant, G., Kruckenberg, A. & Nord, L. 1991. Language specific
patterns of prosodic and segmental structures in Swedish, French and
English. 12th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences.
Aix-en-Provence. p. 118-121.
Josipovic, V & Huntley, R. 1991. Stress-based vs. syllable-based
languages: perception of timing differences in English and Croatian.
12th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Aix-en-Provence.
p. 314-317.
Lisker, L. & Krishnamurti, Bh. 1991. Lexical stress in a
'stressless' language: Judgements by Telegu and English speaking
linguists. 12th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences.
Aix-en-Provence. p. 90-93.
Mochizuki-Sudo, M. & Kiritani, S. 1991. Production and perception of
stress-related durational patterns in Japanese learners of English.
Journal of Phonetics, 19:231-248.
Savithri, S.R. 1995. Letter to the editor: On speech rhythms in
Kannada. Journal of Phonetics, 23:273-289.
Tajima, Keiichi. 1998. Speech rhythm in English and Japanese.
Bloomington: Indiana University. (PhD thesis.)
{http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/ktajima/pubs.html}
My thanks to the following persons for responding:
Steve McCartney, University of Texas
Fred Cummins, IDSIA Switzerland
Geoffrey Sampson, University of Sussex
Ursula Kleinhenz, Zentrum fuer allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft, Berlin
Keiichi Tajima, ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories,
Japan
Simon Donnelly, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Mikael Parkvall, Stockholms Universitet
Thank you
Andries Coetzee
Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education
Potchefstroom, South Africa
E-mail: klsawcpuknet.puk.ac.za